My multi-graft pear tree has leafed out but it never bloomed. Last year it bloomed and I got a couple dozen pears. What has happened? Will I get pears this year? Our weather has been normal for our area.
It's hard to say Mary. Maybe it over bore last year and is resting this year, or maybe you pruned it harder than usual, or maybe you didn't get quite as many chill hours as it needed?
This is it's 3rd year. I did pruned it this past fall but made sure that I could see the beginning of buds or where there would be buds. I'm guessing I pruned it by about 1/4. The pears last year were small but good. I bought it in a 15 gal. nursery container so I'm not sure how old it really is.
As far as chill hours, there are 4 different pears on it with different amounts of hrs. required. Some are low and some higher chill hours. I would think at least the branch with low chill would have flowered.
Yeah, now that it's leafed out there won't be blooms this year.
It's still very young, just consider last year a bonus and try to be patient for next year.
hows the water situation there? i know with most of CA in drought that could cause it to not bloom. you could have also pruned some of the flowering buds. normally pruning should take place during the colder months, but with your area are there really any cold months?
Chickie's, they recommend that we prune in the summer here to control the height of fruit trees. Even with the drought I check it to make sure that it's getting enough water. That's what I do with my other fruit trees and those seem to be fine.
I guess maybe I did prune the flowering buds but you would think at least one of them would have been spared. I was so looking forward to getting pears now I'm really disappointed.
Thistle, when I bought it, it had 3 pears. Last year it gave me between 24-30 but they were tiny and some of them ended up falling off when they were the size of a radish.
Flowers come before leaves. Put a load of manure on it in the fall. Around here we also need limestone because of acidic soil. A late freeze could have killed your blossoms but, you don't get much of a freeze, right? I you get 30 young pears you should remove at least half on that small of a tree. We prune in dormancy.